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The Lord has given you the right conception of the gospel; you cannot too highly prize the same, neither can you ever honour Christ too much by trusting wholly and alone in him. The more simply you do this, the more you honour Christ Jesus. This is the greatest act of worship on Christ we can possibly perform in this world, to trust all we have and are with Christ, for soul and body, for time and eternity. Encourage your dear wife and your beloved daughter to trust in our Lord Jesus Christ continually.

I shall never be in Devonshire any more; I am too old; travelling is become to me very burthensome, yet you and I, and my wife and yours, with your daughter, may have many very blessed meetings before the Lord, and communion with him, and with each other in him at the throne of heavenly grace. He will look us full in the face, He will say here am I," whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." Let what will await us, we have the Lord nigh unto us in all that we call upon him for, so that we need fear no evil, no; not were we this moment walking through the valley of the shadow of death, Christ will even then be with us; his gospel will then have an all-sufficient subject to support and comfort us.

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I mean to go about twenty miles out of London this summer, if the Lord please, for about the space of three months, and then return. I sent you a book by your brother. I have none of my books, they are all in the hands of others, so that I cannot have one except I buy it. My friends conceived it would be best for me to leave them to others; so it is. No one, had I them to give, should be more welcome than yourself. You are one of my favourites in Christ Jesus, that you really are. I think you are better off on a Lord's day to be at home with your family, and read a good gospel sermon, and pour out your heart in prayer before the Lord; you will enjoy more of the Lord in so exercising of yourself than by going hither and thither. The gospel is but here and there to be found. The Lord hath blessed you; the Lord doth bless you; the Lord will bless you. Cast yourself wholly on the Lord; he will not fail you; he will refresh you; he will work all the good pleasure of his will in you, and the work of faith with power." You are, and yours with you, the blessed of the Lord, which made heaven and earth; therefore, it becomes you to bless yourselves in the God of truth. You may well break forth and sing, and say, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness: as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels." To be clothed with Christ, to be in Christ, and to be pure in the sight of God in the blood of Christ, to be complete in Christ: this is blessedness indeed, and everlasting perfection.

I now leave you to ruminate on what I have written. May the Lord make it good and acceptable unto you with his blessing. May he bless you, making your home like the home of Obed-edom, which the Lord did bless. My wife joins in wishing your wife and daugh

ter the same blessing, and that you may increase in the knowledge of Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

I remain, your's, in Christ Jesus,

SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE.

A QUESTION TO THE "COUNTRY CURATE," AND REPLY TO R. WRIGHT.

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DEAR SIR, I BEG leave to request insertion at your earliest convenience of the following question, trusting your much esteemed Cor respondent, Country Curate," will favour the readers of your periodical with an answer thereto, viz. "Is not thought the result of an action of the mind; and whence originates that act, or, who is the author or cause thereof?" My reason for putting the question, and wishing an answer, is as follows.-My much valued friend, Country Curate" (whom I have the happiness of being acquainted with,) states, in his reply to some queries of mine in a former number of your periodical, that "God is the author of every action, good or bad, simply considered as an action." Now, as I have frequently had, and still have, to deplore the sudden flow upon my mind, of thought so horribly wicked, that reflection upon them could not be borne, and which at times have had the momentary effect of plunging me into a fearful apprehension, that surely, I could not be of those who are said to be "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son:" I am therefore desirous of ascertaining from those, whose understandings are more enlightened, and judgments more matured than mine, in the mysteries of divine revelation; whether such thoughts can be the produce of an action, wrought by the Spirit of God, upon the mind of the creature. I apprehend the other individual, "R. Wright," who also briefly replied to my former queries, will also in this instance conceive that "H. P. O. can know but little of God, his word, or his ways, to make such enquiry." I would briefly reply to "R. Wright," that it is of little consequence to me, what his judgment may be, of my attainments in the knowledge of God, his way, and word, inasmuch as I am not ashamed, and trust never shall be ashamed of being a learner in the school of my blessed Lord, assuredly knowing, that "what I know not now, I shall know hereafter." That " R. Wright" may remember, and experience the application of the apostle's exhortation in 1 Cor. iv. 7. and Rom. xii. 16. latter sentence, is the sincere desire of "H. P. O." To your valued correspondent, and my beloved brother in the Lord," Country Curate," I desire to express my most grateful acknowledgments for very lucid replies to my former queries.

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Ardwick, Feb. 15, 1834.

And am, dear Sir, your's, in gospel bonds,

H. P. O.. (A Half-Pay Officer.)

JEHOVAH RUACH, THE ALMIGHTY WORKER, APPLIER, AND SEALER OF HIS OWN WORD,

TO ALL THE ELECT SEED OF ALEHIM, IN ISRAEL'S ETERNAL ADONAI.

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"IN whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise," Eph. i. 13. therefore, you hath he (i. e. God the Holy Ghost) quickened, who were dead (mark this, dear christian reader, dead) in trespasses and sins." Who can give new and spiritual life but God? This is the covenanted work of that most blessed and Almighty Being, who with the Father and the Son is our Three-one Jehovah, blessed for evermore, amen; who, proceeding from the electing Abba, the creating Ishi, the holy Redeemer of his eternally beloved Beulah, worketh eternal life, with all blessings of grace in us, 1 Cor. xii. 11. in whom is our glorious King Emmanuel's everlasting delight, and for whom he governs all worlds, 1 Cor. iii. 21-23; for whom, and to whom also he gave himself, having purchased her, with all deathless comforts for her, and taken her into indissoluble union, made her one with and for his eternal Majesty, in a covenant ordered in all things and sure; see Gen. xvii. 7. Isa. liv. 5. also lxii. 4. with Hosea ii, 19, 20. Wherefore, saith our great apostle, Gal. iv. 6. " And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, (here is heart-work to saving purpose) crying, Abba Father;" so that by regeneration of Jehovah the Spirit, we know that that blessed verse of the beloved apostle, 1 John v. 7. is no interpolation, as say the Unitarians, and other erroneous professors of a mock christianity, but is a divine and eternal soul-comforting truth in our precious Jesus; for we, beloved, are taught of Ruach, to know, feel, and with heaven-born delight to declare, in the face of men and devils, that "there are three that bear record (and which none less than persons can do) in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." "I and my Father are one," John x. 30. says our great God and Saviour.

For his elect church did our dearest Kinsman sanctify himself, John xvii. 19. that all true, essential, everlasting sanctification and holiness be found in, being imparted to his body mystical, 1 Cor. i. 30.; so that it is marked down in the charter of sovereign grace; in the ancient settlements of triune everlasting love on poor, lost, filthy ruined sinners, the chosen of God, the seed royal of eternal bliss. Every vessel of mercy should for ever glory and triumph in their complex Lord Redeemer, 1 Cor. i. 31. This, with ten thousand unfading, incomprehensible blessings of love are freely given to Emmanuel's hidden ones, by the God of all wisdom, mercy, grace, and comfort, treasured up for us in our one blissful common Head and Lord, the Almighty consolation and strength of his dear afflicted family, and is made known to them in seasons of greatest need by the benign Comforter, that adorable third person of the holy Trinity

in Unity, the saving knowledge of whom, John xvii. 3. gives a grace right and title to the everlasting regions of ineffable light, love, and peace. Hence he is emphatically called the Comforter, John xiv. 26. and which all his sealed ones in their times of refreshing by his presence, feel him to be.

Surely the period predicted by the apostle to the Gentiles has arrived, 2 Tim. iii. 1, 5.; for do we not see in the cold, empty, though fashionable profession of the present day, that men are lovers of pleasure, sin, the world, and themselves, more than lovers of God? And does not the heart of every truly enlightened regenerate child of God, daily groaning and feeling the need of God the Spirit's unction, teaching, and precious power? "O my soul, come not thou into their secret, mine honour be not thou united unto them." Do we not also feel a constant necessity of crying mightily to God," Uphold me according to thy word, that I may live" a life of faith on thy co-equal Son, and let me not be ashamed of my hope, as all deniers of his eternal power and Godhead must and shall be, Ps. ix. 16, ì7. John viii. 2. O my soul, may this be thy every day prayer, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe," from all the wide-spreading errors, Christ despising, Holy Ghost blaspheming, and soul-destroying delusions of the present times; and wilt thou not hear, O thou good Shepherd of thy chosen sheep, the heaven-taught bleatings of thy timid lambs, thy feeble flock, and keep them from lions, wolves, and devouring bears of earth and hell. O yes, (dear fellow-travellers)" He will fulfil the desire of them thar fear him; he will hear their cry, and will save them;" for Jehovah Jesus" preserveth all them that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy," Psalm cxlv. 19, 20. Incessantly is the kind Shepherd and Bishop of our souls watching over, feeding, and visiting all the flocks in his diocese, to comfort, bless, strengthen, guide, and secure from thieves and rob bers that beset his fold, John x. 1. Ezek. xxxiv. 11-16.: and in the unequalled love of his heart tells them, that though in the world they shall have tribulation, to be of good cheer, that he hath for them overcome the world; that in him they have peace, and when their warfare is over, they shall enter into rest; that by him, of him, and through him, they (the weakest lambs as well as the strongest sheep) shall be more than conquerors, John xvi. 33. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing."

Thus, brethren, we know that every one that receiveth his testimony from the life-giving operations of the Almighty Spirit creating them anew in Christ Jesusu nto good works, receive a new birth unto righteousness, are passed from death unto life, delivered from wrath and condemnation, are justified freely from all things," for in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory," so that they can, and do set to his seal that Alehim is true. All others are sensual having not the Spirit, against whom the blessed word of God warns us.

(To be continued.)

POETRY.

THE COVENANT OF GRACE.

WHO would so vast a panorama build,
As earth and its inhabitants, nor think-
If gifted with omniscience of its fate?
Who, in the glance prospective, if his eye
Beheld his proud work by some en’my marred,
Instant would not devise, if love were there-
Nor wait for tardy time to bring the need-
A scheme to renovate, and pour disgrace
Upon the coward spolier? Thus our God,
When dwelling in eternity, lone but
Not lonely, himself immense companionship,
Brooding o'er chaos, saw rock, mountain, vale,
Ocean, and river mingled, and he willed-
'Twas but that things of his own making should
Perceive his glory, and his praise declare :—
He willed to separate the salt sea wave,
The pleasant river, and the chrystal fount,
And give to each appropriate residence.

He willed the stately mountain where to stand,
The balmy vale, and broad savannah where

To spread their lengthened beauties; and he willed
To pencil them with all the various hues
Which made our world enchanting: 'twas his will
To give the whole fit habitants, beasts and birds,
Fish, insects, creeping things-and, last of all,
He willed, as their superior and their lord,
One like unto himself, formed in his image,
Erect in the magificence of soul,

To make one great progenitor. 'Twas his will
Coeval with the earth to spread the fair
And fleecy canopy above our heads, to mould
The sunshine orb, the silvery bow, and stars,
Alternate occupants of yonder sky;
Coeval likewise the angelic race,

The cherubim and seraphim peopling heaven,
Swift ministers to be a circling round,

Dependently immortal to adorn.

Tell me, short-sighted man, when Godhead willed,

Ere he the splendid theatre brought forth,

His powerful eye perusing in a glance
The page of all its history, reading there
The highest Seraph's bold rebellion, which
For ever lost him heaven, and in his breast
Planted stern enmity and constant strife;
Stern enmity and strife, which pushed him on
To tarnish Eden, and the man degrade.

Say, would not God-nay, frail one, would'st not thou,
Abhorrent of the tempter, who himself

Untempted fell, much ponder him to thwart,

Thy justice changeless, how the man to save ?

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